Littermates won't accept a squirrel back after a 3 day absence

[ionian]

I have a litter I'm currently rehabbing that's about 8 weeks old. There's 5 in total. although they have been together for a while they're not all from one litter. But they've been together for weeks with no issues. One of them developed a very bad abcess on his left side of his head. He had it for about three weeks. I tried a lot of non-invasive things from hot compresses to antibiotics with no success.

Eventually I was put in touch with a wildlife vet who drained and cleaned out the abcess. She also put a drain in. When I picked him up from the vet, I was told to isolate him for about three days so that the drain could do its job without the other squirrels hurting him by accident by pulling on it or anything like that.

After the three days I tried to reunite him with his littermates in their cage and they absolutely won't tolerate him. Within seconds of seeing him they started growling and chattering at him. One lunged at him. I've been keeping in him in a pet carrier to isolate him and once one lunged at him, he ran to his carrier and refused to come out.

I tried again the next day with similar results except that one actually attacked him.

I've been trying to see if they'll come around by letting him play on top of their cage. I'm no longer opening the door after they attacked him but I'm giving them the opportunity to realize he's one of their littermates. The range of behaviors are truly bizarre. Sometimes, if he's on top of the cage, they'll climb along a rope that I have in their cage near the top, and they'll touch noses through the cage as if they're friendly. Other times they'll chatter their teeth and lunge at him, even though they can't get to him. Clearly there's no consistency to their behavior so I can't trust them even if they were friendly to him.

He was only isolated for three days. Before this, they always slept together in a huddle and played together. Do they just not recognize him without the giant bulge on the side of his head? He's healed up very nicely and he looks like a normal squirrel now that the abscess is gone.

After three days of this I'm at the point of giving up on on the idea of reuniting him with his littermates. I really loathe the idea of having to put him alone in his own cage at this point after he used to play with them all day.

I've been rehabbing for about 6 years and have rehabbed and released about 50-55 squirrels and have never experienced anything like this. Previously, I had one squirrel I had to isolate for about a week and his littermates took him right back, so I have no experience with littermates rejecting someone after only 3 days.

Any idea from anyone here what's happening?

Thanks,
Frank

[Mel1959]

Strange indeed. A few ideas…you could try taking just one of the less dominant squirrels and putting it in with him in a neutral cage to see how they do. If you can find one other squirrel that will tolerate him then at least he won’t be alone.

Another idea would be to remove them all from the cage temporarily, clean the cage and bedding and then reintroduce them all at the same time.

Third idea….do you have another cage that you could transfer them all to after your little guy had established his scent in it? So that they are being put into his territory instead of him being put into theirs.

And lastly, this one may not be feasible if they are older squirrels. They make large plastic bins that have plastic dividers to divide the interior contents of the tub. The one I have has a divider with holes in it. If you could find something like that and your guys aren’t to rambunctious you could try putting the little guy on one side and rotate the others on the other side so they all had a chance to smell him, but not have physical access to him.

Maybe someone who rehabs more than me will have encountered this issue before and have some suggestions.

[Charley Chuckles]

Is the drain tube still in?
I'm wondering if he's smells of the vet clinic 🤷

A friend of mine took her squirrel to the vet the cube they took her back in to put her under for surgery had a funny smell and until the cube was washed she wouldn't go back in it.
Just makes me wonder if they can smell that on him?

[island rehabber]

This happened to me about 10 years ago when our dear Nancy in New York was babysitting my squirrels while I went to the beach for a week with my cousins. They were quints and one of the five developed an eye issue while they were with her. She took the baby to her vet who was an excellent vet, and the eye was treated. Little adorable black baby squirrel was brought back to Nancy's home. Unfortunately his siblings would never accept him again after that, and Nancy tried everything. She ended up keeping him separate but they were released together and all was well out in the wild!

It is really hard to meld squirrel babies when they are 8 weeks or older, in my experience. One thing to try which has worked for me when I've had to introduce new babies into an established group: get the stinkiest yuckiest piece of fleece from their cage and wrap their sibling in it ...just mush it all over him --I don't care how bad it smells-- then see if they will accept him again. This has worked for me although nothing worked in the situation I described before. :(

[ionian]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Last night actually was time to change their bedding and normally everyone gets fresh bedding but instead of fresh bedding, Abscess got fresh bedding and the litter got Abscess' bedding. I had hoped that maybe forcing them to smell him might reset their senses and they'd accept him. (Ok, maybe it was 90% that and 10% was spite as in 'you don't like him now? Well now you have to smell him all night! :grin2)

The funny thing is usually they all crawl under the bedding and sleep in a huddle. I have a little "house" in the corner which is more or less a small plastic container turned upside down with a large mouse hole cut in the front, and when I checked them before, they're all sleeping in a ball in the house! That's something they never do. So apparently they won't even sleep under the blanket that smells like him?

Earlier today, during feeding time, I opened the cage door and let Abscess do what he wanted. He crawled to the front and cautiously entered the cage. I thought it might be working as for the most part, they ignored him for about 2 minutes straight. Then all of a sudden one of them lunged at him (well not just anyone, but there's a specific 'ringleader' that's really causing all the problems) and that was the one who lunged at him. He then bolted out of the cage and ran back inside his carrier and buried himself under the blanket in there. So, this little experiment failed. But I gave Abscess a snap pea to console him.

Now regarding the ringleader (who I'll call lil' maggot as he came in covered head to toe in maggots and had to be thoroughly cleaned and medicated to make sure they were all gone) - when I added lil' maggot to the litter, he had an extremely frightened personality. He was terrified of his own shadow and when first added to the litter he bolted to the upper corner and was pressing himself into it, with his ears pinned back. It was actually Abscess, who is a real sweet boy, who lumbered over to him, climbed up to lil' maggot and actually started petting him with his paw! So it was Abscess who welcomed lil' maggot to the litter and calmed him down so I'm very disappointed that it's really lil' maggot who's leading the charge to ostracize Abscess from the litter.

When I say "leading the charge" it's because when I added lil' maggot to the litter, the litter who was more playful actually picked up more of maggot's personality. They all noticeably changed and started to become frightened like him, and act aggressively. For example, when feeding, lil' maggot always attacks the syringe first! Seriously, he growls at the nipple, then lunges at it and grabs it, and then he'll start feeding. He does this for every single syringe. It's strange behavior. Anyway, even more of the more sedate of the litter have started to pick up this behavior and have gotten aggressive.

Lil' maggot is a male, but there's a female who has become almost his twin since his addition. They stay together and they're both aggressive. Her becoming aggressive after palling around with him.

There is another boy, who used to be sweet but the last day or so, has also picked up maggot's behavior and has started lunging at Abscess, growling at syringes, etc.

There is one female who seems not really bothered by Abscess. After today's abject failure to integrate Abscess, I'm just going to move him to a new cage and I'm going to try to see if the female is fine with him. If she is, I'll move her to the cage also with him and that will be that. It's really a sad situation since before his visit to the vet, they were all inseparable.